‘Beyond policy tourism’: the international lived experience of cycling in the Netherlands and Canada

ABSTRACT

As more cities implement cycling infrastructure, there is a growing need to both learn best practices from other places through a detailed understanding of the lived and embodied experiences of cycling. However, this is rarely the case. On the one hand, planners and policymakers rely on incomplete (quantitative) data and policy tours that are unable to document the full extent of cycling or how it is experienced. While recent studies have expanded to include qualitative methods, they are predominantly conducted in one place, limiting our ability to draw international comparisons. The Netherlands is a popular destination for such tours and is generally regarded as one of the best places in the world for cycling. But what about people who, for a variety of reasons, have lived in different countries? Their knowledge, experiences and reflections on cycling are rarely featured in planning. To redress this, we interviewed participants who have international experience, capturing beyond aspects of policy tourism, illuminating how: (1) mixed land-use patterns, (2) incentivizing cycling as a mode choice, and (3) cycle networks and safety are vital to cycling participation. We advance the cycling research agenda by examining these findings and proposing changes best suited to low-cycling cities.

KEYWORDS:

• Dutch cycling
• active transportation
• policy tourism
• cycling demand
• cycle network planning; international comparison

1. Introduction

The Netherlands is generally considered the best country in the world for cycling due to urban planning and sustainable transport practices (Pojani & Stead, 2015). Any visitor is immediately drawn to bikes, as they are everywhere. One of the first challenges facing tourists as they depart the city’s main train station is dodging all the fast-moving bikes. For lucky visitors, a trip to the Netherlands may even involve getting the opportunity to ride a bike; most cities and tourist towns have companies that will rent out bicycles by the hour, or day.¹ Tourists returning home will undoubtedly tell stories of all those bikes and how it was so different from their home cities.

While this type of knowledge transfer seems superficial, it is one of the main ways in which knowledge of Dutch cycling spreads internationally. Some visitors post videos of their cycling adventures on social media, and a few have even made a living out of telling the story of Dutch cycling to visitors via the internet and social media. For those who have never been to the Netherlands, it is easy to dismiss high-profile examples of bicycle infrastructure, such as the new, multi-storey underground bicycle parkade at Amsterdam’s ‘Stationsplein’, as being too expensive or far-fetched for their own low-cycling countries (Dutch, 2023).

For professionals keen to learn about cycling in the Netherlands, a common method is a short fact-finding trip to see Dutch cycling infrastructure and experience it for themselves by cycling. But while these ‘policy tourism’ trips are popular, the process and efficacy of policy transfer through these visits remain poorly understood (Glaser et al., 2020), and they rarely lead to significant policy changes back home (McCann, 2013; Pojani & Stead, 2015; Ward, 2006). These carefully scripted trips show visiting politicians, planners, and policymakers the highlights rather than participants being able to fully experience the full extent of cycling in the local context. While they have a role to play, particularly in inspiring and galvanizing local support (Glaser & Te Brömmelstroet, 2022; Glaser et al., 2020), they paint a very incomplete picture of what it’s like to cycle.

Living in a place provides a very different experience than a short holiday or policy tour. One of the authors of this article lived in the Netherlands for more than a decade. But even a few months of residing in a place provides the opportunity to experience the routines and normalcy of day-to-day life. When these two places have very different attitudes towards cycling, cycling mode share, infrastructure, values, cultures, laws and norms, an international and comparative lived experience approach offers unique and hitherto untapped insights into a broader understanding of the range of factors that shape cycling practices and experiences. Through lived experiences, the ‘shock value’ of seeing everyone cycling around town (a common remark among tourists in the Netherlands) quickly dissipates into routines that involve taking kids to school, visiting friends, shopping or other ordinary activities that, at least statistically, are done by bike in the Netherlands more than in any other country (Goel et al., 2022). Living in the Netherlands gives one an opportunity to actively participate in the mobility practices in another country and compare the experience with another country.

However, to date, most cycling research does not take into account these international lived experiences. The benefit of this approach is that participants have something to compare with (both Canadians living in the Netherlands and Dutch people residing in Canada). Cycling researchers are turning more attention to day-to-day experiences of cycling; however, this growing body of literature focuses on one place (Mayers & Glover, 2020; Ravensbergen, 2022). More commonly, however, planners and policymakers rely on quantitative data for decision-making, focusing on metrics that ignore the lived experience and meaning derived from cycling (Te Brömmelstroet et al., 2017).

What do we learn about cycling when we engage with people who have lived both in one of the best countries in the world for cycling (the Netherlands), and Canada, a so-called ‘low-cycling country?’ To what extent does this information differ from either quantitative comparison (mode share, kilometres of bike lanes, etc), or qualitative research focusing on one place? How can this international lived experience help to develop better cycling infrastructure, culture, policies and rules in a country like Canada? These are the questions at the heart of this article.

We employed a qualitative case study and interviewed a total of 55 people who have lived in both Canada and the Netherlands for a period of at least three months. Ours is the first study to explicitly focus on this international, comparative lived experience in cycling. While we find some similarities with the conclusions drawn through policy tourism (good infrastructure is important), our participants talked about the importance of a variety of things that went far beyond bike lanes.

In our findings, we emphasize that attention be placed on (1) mixed-use development and land use patterns, (2) incentivizing cycling as a mode choice, and (3) cycling networks and safety as vital to cycling participation. We advance the cycling research agenda by moving beyond statistical evidence of bike lanes and mode share. Instead, we examine the social and physical factors influencing mobility choice in detail and propose changes to help develop cycling infrastructure, culture, and rules in low-cycling countries such as Canada.

2. Literature review

2.1. Shortcomings of narrow data collection

Focusing policy tourism efforts and teachings based on seemingly generalizable quantitative data has shortcomings. One of the shortcomings of relying primarily on quantitative data for planning and policy decisions is that analysis is limited to interpreting variables such as neighbourhood characteristics, mode share, travel times, and other traffic data (Mayers & Glover, 2021; Saelens et al., 2003). Further, the metrics used to evaluate the success of cycling infrastructure are often the number of kilometres of bike paths or increases in the proportion of journeys made by bike (Krizek, 2018). The planning of cycling infrastructure is generally seen as a technical matter for engineers, where design consultation leaves little room for incorporating the lived experiences of riding a bike (Mayers & Glover, 2021) let alone how race, age, gender, and ability factors shape different experiences of urban space (Butler, 2020). Mobility is not only about getting from point A to B; cycling is a sensory experience (Spinney, 2011) that exposes one to both new forms of diversity (Te Brömmelstroet et al., 2017) and potential conflicts with other road users should be minimized (Mayers, 2020).

Mayers and Glover (2021) argue that concentrating on narrowly defined statistical measures for cycling participation gives a skewed version of who is cycling and ignores groups whose needs should be incorporated into policy and planning. The groups who are dismissed in this narrow collection of data include the needs of women largely partaking in care trips, children going to school, service and food delivery workers, those with disabilities, and those experiencing homelessness. By viewing data collection through an equity lens and opening up the methods of data collection, more can be understood about the cycling experience, and areas of concern can be made visible to decision-makers (Mayers & Glover, 2023). For example, Ravensbergen et al. (2020) emphasize that the gendered experience of care is reflected in the mobility patterns of women, and these patterns are overwhelmingly ignored in both research and practice despite the consideration of care work in transportation being an integral key to gender equality. Therefore, there is a need to focus on the lived and embodied experiences of cycling, as this gives more fine-grained insights into the day-to-day travel patterns if cyclists and how to encourage more cycling trips.

2.2. One location; one context

The experiences of cycling are not monolithic; thus, collecting data on the cycling experience provides insight into how the transportation environment either encourages or inhibits travel. There are many promising studies on the experience of cycling conducted in one specific location, such as intra-urban divisions in Utrecht (Van Duppen & Spierings, 2013), in the car-centric city of Waterloo (Mayers & Glover, 2020), and the experiences of one group such as the gendered and/or classed Toronto-based immigrants and refugees participating in a bike program (Ravensbergen, 2022). Within Canada, researchers and decision-makers have concentrated on encouraging cycling participation by providing safe and protected infrastructure (Mayers & Glover, 2021), and education for cyclists (van Lierop et al., 2016). Nevertheless, the experience of cycling in Canada is not optimal for the majority, with the lack of safety as the foremost inhibitor of cycling (Mayers & Glover, 2021).

While these studies provide insight into the cycling experience and factors that encourage and inhibit participation conducted in one location, context, or for one group, there continues to be a lack of comparative studies between countries – especially comparing between countries while gathering data from the same participants. The focus of the current literature makes it difficult to make direct comparisons between countries qualitatively and the distinct aspects of the cycling experience, given the participants being the constant.

Although transportation behaviour can be relatively stable over the course of one’s life, it can also change or be disrupted for a multitude of reasons. As Sattlegger and Rau (2016) describe, mobility behaviour can be interrupted by changes or personal life events, such as changes in employment, family, or residential location, and qualitative methodologies can be used to examine the behaviour changes. Further, Burbidge (2012) conducted a quantitative analysis of the travel behaviour of university students returning to the US after a period abroad. She found that even if students walked, cycled or used transit more while away, they reverted to their original transport behaviour when they returned. However, her analysis could not examine why participants reverted back to these modes. For this research, delving into participants’ experiences from an international perspective offers new insight into how cycling behaviour changes and based on their reflections, enables a qualitative comparative analysis of the experiences.

2.3. Policy tourism

The Netherlands often attracts international visitors who are curious to learn about cycling and best practices for planning and engineering. Although these tours have benefits such as broadening the visitors’ view of what is possible, this ‘policy tourism’ rarely leads to tangible policy shifts for the visiting countries’ delegates (Pojani & Stead, 2015; Ward, 2006). Short fact-finding trips with training activities centred around state-of-the-art and impressive physical cycling infrastructure only capture one aspect of incentivizing cycling travel behaviour. Many celebrate the Netherlands for its cycling infrastructure yet leave out any of the context as to how they arrived at their transportation landscape and the aspects of their culture that continuously support this landscape (Agervig Carstensen & Ebert, 2012). McCann (2013) and Glaser et al. (2020) argue that policy tours are akin to collecting souvenirs from holiday and too narrowly focused on carefully crafted tours, where those visiting go home with photographs and PowerPoint files on de-contextualized physical infrastructure.

The social practices, norms, politics, laws, and perceptions of safety in a place can be introduced during a policy tour. However, they are difficult to experience during a brief visit. Intersecting identities of race, gender, age and ability can also influence these social factors and the uptake of cycling. To experience these factors requires an extended period of residency, where one has the opportunity to develop habits, rhythms, and patterns similar to the local population. The concept of an extended period of time in a transportation environment to assess these social factors of cycling have only been seen through ethnographies conducted by the researcher within one context (Lugo, 2013), yet provides unique insights into the ‘human infrastructure’ needed to support cycling participation and safety. In this article, we focus on participants’ international lived experiences to render the comparative social and environmental factors visible in an effort to better understand how to plan for safer, more enjoyable, and equitable bicycle-friendly communities in Canada.

3. Methodology

In this study, we employed a qualitative case study methodology to explore how individuals’ international lived experience of cycling changes and what factors influence their travel behaviour. On the one hand, qualitative methodologies for exploring the differences in behaviour from country to country are rare, as statistical mode share is frequently used to compare places, and is the primary method of outlining the gaps in participation, all while making assumptions as to how to increase mode share in low-cycling, car-centric cities (Buehler & Pucher, 2022; Pucher et al., 2011). These research methodologies help show broad trends across counties, especially given the varied political and geographical contexts. On the other hand, qualitative methodologies can give researchers and decision-makers a window into how the lived experience of cycling changes and what aspects of the social and environmental contexts influence their mobility. If both methodologies are utilized, then we can get a more comprehensive view of the cycling landscape.

To understand the differences in behaviour and rationale from country to country, we interviewed 55 participants who have lived in the Netherlands and Canada for at least three months. Of these participants, 37 were Canadian, and 18 were Dutch. The participants were recruited through social media and connected to our project’s website, where they could request to be a participant and identify as any of the four groups: (1) Canadians living in the Netherlands, (2) Canadians who have returned from living in the Netherlands, (3) Dutch living in Canada, or (4) Dutch who have returned from living in Canada. Of the participants, 17 were considered ‘experts’, consisting of city planners, engineers, local politicians, or academics who work in transportation. The participants in this study skew highly socioeconomically and identify mainly as white. Considering the privilege associated with international travel and living, the participant representation is not entirely surprising and is by no means representative of either the Canadian or Dutch populations at large, yet all participants have experienced feeling what it is like to be a newcomer in the country they moved to, lending a unique understanding of travel. (See Table 1 for more demographic information).

Table 1. Participant demographics.

Participant Demographics	# of participants’ absolute values	% of participants
Country of residence prior to moving
Netherlands	18	32.7
Canada	37	67.3
Age Range
18–29	13	23.6
30–39	11	20
40–49	15	27.3
50–59	13	23.6
60–69	2	3.6
70+	1	1.8
Years CAD spent in NL
>1 year	9	16.4
1–5 years	13	23.6
5–10 years	8	14.5
10+ years	7	12.7
Years NL spent in CAD
>1 year	2	3.6
1–5 years	3	5.5
5–10 years	5	9.0
10+ years	8	14.5
Education
Highschool	6	11%
University/College Degree	21	38%
Masters/PhD/Professional Degree	27	49%
N/A	1	2%
Gender
He/him	27	49%
She/her	28	51%
Income (all converted to CAD dollars)
0-25K	3	5%
25-50K	4	7%
50-75K	7	13%
75-100K	6	11%
100-150K	12	22%
150K+	23	42%

The interviews were framed using our semi-structured interview guide, stemming from our research questions (1) How does place shape cycling behaviour? (2) How is cycling behaviour shaped across the life course? And (3) How are intersectional identities expressed while cycling? Interview questions aligned with the research questions, such as ‘Tell me about your cycling habits in each country’ and ‘What aspects of the environment influenced your cycling?’ The interviewer asked these open-ended questions and probed based on the responses from the interviewee to ensure reputability and consistency across all interviews. Interviews ranged from 45 minutes to 3 hours in duration. Detailed notes were taken throughout the interview and used to probe participants for follow-up questions. After the interviews, the interviewer promptly took analytic memo notes about the main takeaways to increase the credibility and internal validity of the analysis, as shown by Rogers (2018). The interview audio was transcribed using Zoom transcription software. The transcripts and notes were uploaded to Nvivo and subsequently thematically coded to create the findings, following Cope (2016) and analyzing qualitative data.

4. Findings

The participants spoke at length about their experiences in both countries and how their cycling behaviour was influenced depending on where they lived. Despite all of the participants having cycled in the Netherlands while they lived there, upon returning or moving to Canada, they faced added challenges or barriers to cycling. From the participants’ perception, these challenges and barriers stemmed from the cultural expectation that in the Netherlands, cyclists are prioritized, versus in Canada, drivers are. For many, the barriers to cycling were too high, regardless of having biked in the Netherlands. This finding exemplifies the need to focus attention beyond policy tourism and examine the international lived experience for a complex understanding of how to better support cycling in a country such as Canada.

Our findings are structured into thematic areas that participants focused on as the most effective changes that, from their perspective, influenced their behaviour. The findings include (1) dense and mixed land-uses, (2) incentivizing cycling as a mode choice, and (3) cycle networks and safety. All quotes are verbatim from interview transcripts, with numbers used in place of participant names to retain anonymity.

4.1. Dense and mixed land-uses

When asked about their trips and mode choice in each country, participants spoke about differences in density and land use patterns as playing an essential role in their choice. In the Netherlands, all participants lived within walking or biking distance from their essential needs, such as a local grocery store, or school. Regardless of urban or rural living, participants in the Netherlands could all access these destinations easily and without an automobile. Although a few participants owned personal cars in the Netherlands and some used their cars for long-distance trips or to visit multiple work sites in one day, no participants drove their cars into the city centre. They would always walk, bike, or take the train, as taking the car was inefficient and costly for these short trips.

In Canada, only the participants who resided in densely populated, mixed-use areas (typically older, pre-World War II areas in larger cities such as Toronto or Vancouver) said they could (and did) walk or bike to the grocery store. But even here, not all of their essential destinations were accessible via bike, with many feeling the need to own a car and drive to destinations. Access to grocery stores and schools were the top destinations mentioned by participants, so when creating a cycle-friendly city, our study found these destinations as essential in supporting cycling as a mode.

4.1.1. Access to grocery stores

The participants mentioned that grocery stores were the most frequent destination to outline the differences in mode choice between countries. As a direct comparison, ‘grocery stores in the Netherlands are everywhere and more common than Canadian convenience stores!’ (#89, a Canadian male transportation planner). Another mentioned the ease of access and variety: ‘I would walk to the grocery store mostly, but I always biked to the cheaper grocery store a bit further away’ (#12, 18–29 YO female graduate student, earns 25-50k).

In Canada, participants emphasized the lack of mixed land use and integrated cycling infrastructure to access nearby destinations. For example, a participant who used to live in a suburban city outside of Toronto mentioned, ‘Despite being 500 m from the grocery store in Burlington, I don’t feel safe walking or biking to get groceries, and there’s no bike parking when I get there!’ (#29, female). Likewise, a participant explained why recreational cycling is more feasible in Canada compared to utilitarian cycling in the Netherlands. He states, ‘In Canada, I use my bike for fun along the river canal but not to do daily errands because there are no stores easily accessible by bike’ (#31). The proximity and mixed land uses are integral to making cycling trips feasible; otherwise, the lack of accessibility to a grocery store within a short bike will continue to be a main barrier to cycling. Many explained that one of their main reasons for owning a car in Canada is the trip to the grocery store.

One of the unique ways in which the mixed land uses manifested in the transportation environment was in the frequency of trips to the grocery store, as the ease of access to the grocery store in the Netherlands resulted in more trips with less cargo to carry compared to the less frequent and larger cargo loads in Canada. A mother who shops for her family of 6 mentioned how she prefers the more frequent trips. She explains:

In Canada, we did weekly grocery trips, and we drove to several grocery stores. When moving to the Netherlands, we adapted to a daily grocery run by bike for our family of 6. It allows us to eat fresher food and saves a lot of food waste.

(#64)

In the Netherlands, it is common for there to be multiple grocery stores within easy reach by bicycle, especially in urban areas.

4.1.2. Access to school

Another integral destination mentioned by all participants was the proximity of their school when they were growing up or for their children. In the Netherlands, the Dutch participants explained how everyone either walked or biked to elementary school and everyone biked to high school. The Dutch participants explained how the number of bikes at school could be overwhelming. One of the Dutch participants jokingly states,:

I walked to primary school because there were too many kids who biked, and they couldn’t accommodate all the bikes so they drew a circle around the school and told the kids within the circle they had to walk (#46)!

In high school, most participants would bike with friends who lived nearby, and it was typical to bike longer distances compared to Canada. One participant mentioned:

I grew up in Leiden, and my high school was 10 km away. I would meet up with friends and bike to school together. It was normal for everyone to bike that distance. It was weird if you didn’t.

(#60)

She compared her upbringing with the school pick-up and drop-off that she sees in Vancouver, saying: ‘There’s a traffic jam at 3 pm in Canada because it’s school pickup time. That would never happen with cars in the Netherlands’. (#60)

Those who moved to Canada from the Netherlands with kids and those who grew up in Canada mentioned rarely walking or cycling to school and that it would be out of the ordinary to do so because it was just too dangerous. A Dutch mother explained that after she moved to Ottawa and had a child, she has never trusted her child on a bike alone, and he is now a teenager. In explaining her rationale for her son, she states:

In the Netherlands, everyone has a good idea of who is around them, and drivers are automatically wrong, even if it is the cyclists’ fault. I still bike with my son because I don’t trust him to get there safely. When I was taking my driver’s license in Canada, I was never taught to look out for bikes and it shows.

(#30)

Of the many participants who studied in the Netherlands for an international exchange, one of the participants at the University of Nijmegen said that during the orientation, the University was selling used bikes and teaching them about cycling safely in the Netherlands. He outlined:

It wasn’t until my used bike broke that I realized how long it took to get everywhere and I learned just how inefficient and terrible transit and walking was. I could do all my trips on a bike in the Netherlands.

(#79)

One of the main differences between the countries was how students were enabled to get to school, and this accessibility fosters a mode choice that continues with students as they move on throughout their life course.

4.2. Incentivizing cycling

All participants in this study mentioned how cycling in the Netherlands was incentivized and how the inverse is true in Canada, where driving is incentivized and prioritized. These incentives centred around policy, infrastructure, and support programs used to nudge participants in the Netherlands to use a bike. Beyond the safe and connected cycling network, the most impactful incentives participants mentioned were bike parking, workplace subsidies, and bike and car sharing.

4.2.1. Bike parking

Overwhelmingly, participants said the availability of bike parking in the Netherlands is very high. They also mentioned how they felt accounted for and thought the transportation planners stayed active in their plans to better provide bike parking. Participants mainly spoke about the number of bikes that keeps rising and how transportation planners must adapt their plans to accommodate more bikes continuously.

In the Netherlands, bike parking is free and secure. Some mentioned that most train stations have a free 24 hr service and charge a minimal fee thereafter, such as 1 euro/day or lower, to deter people from leaving their bikes there for an extended period. Even in small towns such as Bennekom, one of the participants explained how normalized secure bike parking is. She states, ‘In the Netherlands, the bike parking is amazing with free guarded parking garages just for your bike’ (#22). The opposite experience of bike parking was mainly the case in Canadian cities. A Dutch participant was shocked when she spent time in downtown Toronto while studying. She explained the difference in her experiences from country to country:

There was no bike parking in Toronto, and I would just lock it to a signpost wondering, will I be fined? Will it be stolen? Is it safe? But in the Netherlands, there’s bike parking everywhere!”.

(#21)

On the other hand, in the Netherlands, car parking is disincentivized, with parking spots at a premium, and the paid parking rates reflect that. One of the participants, who has been living in the Hague, emphasized the parking costs as one of the reasons why people choose not to drive. He states, ‘The parking costs are a huge deterrent for driving. In the Hague, it’s roughly 32 euro/day to park, and min wage is only 11euros/hr’. (#25)

4.2.2. Workplace subsidies

When asked about how participants commuted to work or other destinations, they spoke about how their workplace, depending on the country, incentivized cycling or driving. In the Netherlands, cycling was seen as a respectable commuting method versus in Canada, a recreational trip that wasn’t taken as seriously. This framing changed the support and funding structures for cycling and reinforced the car culture and commute mode choice in that location. For example, in the Netherlands, one of the Canadians who spent time living and working in Amsterdam said her Dutch employer ‘pays by mileage and not mode, so I make about 100 euro more per month by biking to work rather than driving or taking transit. The company also has a bike payment subsidy where I can get money towards a new bike’ (#40). This workplace subsidy is not atypical. Other participants spoke of these workplace cycling subsidies explaining, ‘The government pays into promoting cycling and active lifestyles’ (#84) and ‘I’ve never worked at a company in the Netherlands that didn’t pay for my daily travel costs’ (#88).

Upon returning from the Netherlands to Canada, one of the participants working for a law firm in the Hague asked the law firm she was now working for in downtown Toronto to pay for her cycling mileage. She was confronted with a resounding no. She stated, ‘The law firm I work for laughed at me when I asked them to pay mileage for my bike ride despite them paying mileage for both car and transit trips’ (#54).

4.2.3. Bike share and car share

When participants lived in the Netherlands, the expectations of owning a vehicle changed. The sharing economy of mobility shifted from country to country as the housing density and availability of sharing vehicles grew. According to many of the experts interviewed in this study, the shared mobility economy gives residents more options and does not necessitate owning a car to drive one occasionally. The increase in shared vehicles also made the need for parking spaces for cars less of an issue for city planners. Thus, cities are incentivized to give space to shared programs because they see the value in the shared economy of mobility.

For bike sharing in the Netherlands, the most popular bike share in the country is operated by OV Fiets, in association with the train company NS. The bikes are reliably available at all train stations throughout the country and many other locations as well. According to participants, the bike share system in Canada is not as reliable or widely used, with participants unsure about the details of bike share in their location and saw bike share as mainly for tourists. Practically, this meant, ‘In the Netherlands, the bike share is great for some trips but is mainly for locals who are taking the train for the day and not for tourists, versus in Canada, where the bike shares are mostly for tourists’ (#22). Another participant explained the difference in service. He articulated:

OV Fiets are located at the train stations, you check it out for the entire day, and bring it back to the station. It’s linked to the transit card for minimal friction and a low cost. In Canada, you need to deliver the bike back to a docking station, there may not be a bike at that station, the station may not be near your destination, and you’re charged by 30-minute intervals”.

(#1)

Many of those in Canada mentioned how the bike share system was too complicated in comparison. For example, ‘The bike share in Vancouver (Mobi) was too complicated but I loved OV Fiets because it was seamless with the pass I already owned’ (#12). These cycling experiences in the Netherlands are made feasible by focusing on last-mile trips and making cycling the most seamless, efficient, and cheapest way to travel.

Counterintuitively, seamless access to car share in the Netherlands was another way in which Dutch cities incentivized cycling, as the need to own a personal vehicle becomes a choice, with many other options for the odd car trip if need be. Many Canadian participants who moved to the Netherlands and sold their car upon leaving Canada, opting to live car-free in the Netherlands, said they simply book a car share when needed. For example, a software engineer who moved to Amsterdam from Ottawa stated:

I can rent a car and reserve it, like when I go to Ikea that one time to buy a couch. But how many times do you buy a couch? I don’t have to own one myself”.

(#31)

Nonetheless, even when the participants owned a car in the Netherlands, they used it infrequently. One of the Dutch women who moved to Canada mentioned how ‘growing up, we used the family car so infrequently that one time we opened the door and mushrooms were growing in the backseat!’ (#55). The need for car sharing in Canadian cities and the potential for mode shifting was clear amongst participants, but they claimed they needed to be given the tools to make those choices in Canada.

4.3. Differences in safety

4.3.1. Safety and hierarchy of road users

Despite the physical cycling infrastructure being important for participants to cycle, they all mentioned the hierarchy of road users and the cultural expectations of different modes and the influence it has on their perception of safety. The hierarchy of modes, where cycling is first, pedestrians second, and car drivers third, is reflected in how participants perceived road space, anticipated the behaviour of others, and determined what made them feel safe and encouraged them to bike. A participant from Calgary compared the hierarchy of vehicles between countries, explaining, ‘In Canada, it’s cars, peds [sic], bikes, but the hierarchy of vehicles in the Netherlands is bikes, peds, cars’ (#16). This hierarchy is typically overlooked in the realm of policy tourism as it is not a physical but a social policy. Participants spoke of the vastly different treatment of cyclists between countries, suggesting that the legal hierarchy of road users was a contributing factor to their enjoyment and safety on a bike.

In the Netherlands, cyclists and pedestrians are considered ‘vulnerable road users’ rather than ‘vehicles in traffic’, and they are listed at the top of the hierarchy. Hence, other road users respect their movements. Road rules and laws reflect this, translating to legal protection for cyclists; almost every participant had a comment such as: ‘Drivers are always at fault, even if I go through a red light’ (#16). One participant, a lawyer in the Netherlands, elaborated on how the classification translates to the cycling experience. He stated:

In the Netherlands, drivers are legally responsible and even if a cyclist goes through a red light, they would have to pay because the cyclist is the ‘vulnerable road user’, and this is written into the traffic code. [In the Netherlands,] drivers are seen as more of a menace or impediment to society, so there is a certain level of responsibility you have with a car that isn’t expected of you in Canada”.

(#1)

The streets in the Netherlands are built to protect vulnerable road users, and signs remind drivers of this hierarchy. This core difference underpins the ways that planners conceive of the space. Participants interpreted the signage on the streets and felt comfortable riding on all the roads that clearly stated they had the right of way. For instance, ‘on streets 30 km or less, “cars are guests” signs denote that bikes have priority, meaning they have to travel behind you slowly’ (#31).

Meanwhile, in Canada, participants argued that ‘share the road’ signs seem like suggestions for positive behaviour, rather than rules to follow. Many noted how traffic laws are different in Canada: even when drivers are at fault, the responsibility seems to lie with the cyclist, whose job is to be defensive and keep themselves safe from cars and trucks. In the Canadian context, no responsibility lies with the more dangerous road user. One of the participants who moved to Waterloo, Ontario from Raamsdonk, a village in the south of the Netherlands, explained his experience with drivers growing up compared to Canada:

A teenage car driver hit me (in Waterloo), which was the driver’s fault. I was in a coma for multiple days and survived. Before the crash, I was Dutch and assumed everyone saw me. Now I am more Canadian about it and defensive.

(#61, age 50–59, retired, living with a disability)

Made visible from the findings are the discernible differences in the social expectations of road users between countries and the influence it has on the perception of the transportation environment.

4.3.2. Cycling networks and safety

When participants lived in the Netherlands, the transportation network for cycling was intuitive and well-connected. The network connectivity was thought through at a local level within the city, between cities, and out into the countryside in the Netherlands. These connections made cycling, for all purposes, safe, seamless, and enjoyable. The network of safe cycling infrastructure meant that participants perceived their cycling trips in the Netherlands as safe, mentioning that ‘cycling is as easy in the Netherlands as it is popping into your car in Canada. You just grab [your bike] and go’ (#65). According to participants, such as a Canadian planner who did his masters in Nijmegen, ‘all land use and street design are connected and planned in tandem with each other and designed as a whole network’ (#79). Some participants appreciated the standardization of the cycling network, with one participant mentioning that ‘all roads have standardized cycling infrastructure and wayfinding signage, so I always know where I’m going, without a question of if cars will be going fast beside me, which makes me feel safe’ (#23).

On the other hand, in Canada, participants spoke about the lack of network connectivity and how urban cycling infrastructure can be disjointed. Those born in or living in car-centric cities or towns within Canada mentioned that riding a bike has to start with a car trip because there is no safe connection to their house. In other words, to go for a bike ride, you first have to drive somewhere with the bike in your car! One of the Dutch participants who moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, was saddened by the lack of connected cycling infrastructure and missed cycling so much that he had to purchase a car to bring his bike to the trail. He explained:

The route planning is terrible. If we did the same thing in the Netherlands, there would be so many accidents, which would be obviously unsafe.

(#66)

A student from Vancouver, who had been studying in Wageningen, was frustrated by the Vancouver infrastructure since having lived in the Netherlands. He explained:

I mainly bike because it’s cheap and it’s better for my mental health, but cycling is stressful at times. In Vancouver, the network is too fragmented. You have to merge in with traffic at every roundabout where there is no room for both a bike and a car.

(#69)

Another participant, who is a planner who moved from Utrecht to Toronto, outlined why this infrastructure is so disjointed. He stated:

There are different plans depending on the area and Ward, which makes it hard to connect infrastructure. Cycling needs to be part of a bigger network in Canada, so there’s not just 1 km of good bike path, and then it ends.

(#85)

Finally, in Canada, the traffic rules help foster a sense of disconnect within the network, such as being able to make right-hand turns on red lights, left-hand turns while pedestrians and cyclists are crossing, and turning right by using a slip lane, etc. These rules influenced the accessibility and safety of the cycling network. For example, one of the many participants outraged that places in Canada still allow right turns on red lights stated, ‘One of my childhood friends was killed by a truck turning right’ (#15).

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, cycling infrastructure is largely experienced as a seamless network that connects important places in the form of a direct, safe, and convenient network. As for the traffic rules, participants emphasized how the network connections and seamless nature of travel for cyclists were well thought out and contributed to their decision to bike. For example:

In the Netherlands, there are no rights on red or slip lanes, and all the signals are high-tech for every user. They even have rain sensors in Groningen, where the traffic lights change, so cyclists don’t have to wait as long. This keeps the cyclists safe because there aren’t drivers cutting them off, and it makes it enjoyable.

(#15)

When looking at maps of cities in Canada and the Netherlands, bicycle infrastructure looks remarkably similar, albeit with far more bike lanes in the Netherlands. However, this abstract view from afar belies these networks’ very different lived experiences. While Canadian bike networks look good on paper, it is clear from our interviews that they are experienced as a series of disconnected tangents that are influenced both by gaps in the infrastructure and other road rules and street designs that prioritize the free-flowing movement of cars.

5. Discussion and conclusions

The results from this study illustrate how the lived experiences of cycling change when the same participants who live internationally are enabled to enjoy cycling as their preferred mode choice. Our qualitative findings are unique as they express the social and physical factors vital to their cycling participation. The findings directly compare the experience of living in Canada to living in the Netherlands for an extended period of time rather than a short visit to one location, only highlighting the positive and high-cost physical infrastructure. This research, therefore, contributes to the gap in our knowledge about how the lived experience changes when a participant lives in another country and, from their perception, provides insight into the social factors that create a cycle-friendly transportation environment. In doing so, this work goes beyond policy tourism and quantitative methods, underscoring the need to incorporate qualitative methods and aspects of the lived experience in cycling planning and policy tourism. To inform policy decisions in low-cycling countries such as Canada, decision-makers need to capture the full extent of the cycling experience and the measures needed to create a safe and enjoyable ride, rather than relying on insufficient broad data on success metrics of participation rates and kilometres of bike lanes built.

Unlink previously researched factors that encourage or inhibit cycling participation such as road safety, participants reflect on their international experiences to provide a deeper understanding of their behaviour. Participants delved into factors that impacted their behaviour from country to country, giving detailed insights into the day-to-day lived experiences of cycling and how other changes could be made to complement safety measures for cycling. First, participants overwhelmingly experienced significant differences in how cycling is prioritized in physical, social and legal ways, emphasizing the incentives for cycling are far beyond mere bike lanes. Where cycling was prioritized in all these realms, a whole world of possibilities opened. For example, the participants who moved to the Netherlands found that they now lived within neighbourhoods where work, grocery stores, schools, and other destinations were within biking distance. These land use and density patterns, combined with a protected, seamless, and safe cycling network (wide ample safe bike parking), where car drivers also had a legal role to play in keeping cyclists safe, all worked together to create a context where people who never rode bikes in Canada were regular cyclists in the Netherlands.

The inverse was true when participants moved from the Netherlands to Canada. These findings support other research on creating cycle-friendly cities through mixed-use design and land use, as the majority of cycle trips are under 5 km to school and to the grocery store (Hosford et al., 2022; Nielsen & Skov-Petersen, 2018). By examining the international lived experiences, we are able to unpack the travel habits of those who, if given the opportunity to bike to destinations close in proximity, do so with ease. Our research also helps to show just how different the same person’s experiences of mobility can be where these different factors are all present or largely absent. Future work should strive to explore the inequities that exist in selecting cycling as a mode of travel and unpack the differences in the perception and experiences of cycling for equity-deserving groups from country to country.

Second, changes in participant cycling behaviour were seen from country to country, mainly because of how supported and prioritized they felt in the planning process. Considering policy tourism or knowledge transfer mainly focuses on the best practice for physical infrastructure (Glaser et al., 2020), our findings call attention to the social programs typically ignored by planners. These programs included ample secure bike parking, workplace incentives, and various bike and car share programs available to them. Of the many incentives mentioned by participants and in line with other literature on supporting the experience of cycling were bike parking (Heinen & Buehler, 2019), workplace incentive programs (Ciccone et al., 2021), car sharing (Nijland & van Meerkerk, 2017), and bike share programs (Ma, 2020) had the most influence on participants behaviour and helped reinforce their mode choice in both Canada and the Netherlands. A unique contribution of this study, however, is the international comparison supporting the concept that if given the correct physical and social supports for cycling, the same participants can behave differently and change their travel behaviour.

Third, along with incentives, the access to and experience of cycling in the Netherlands was far better, yet it also came alongside disincentives for driving. As seen through our findings, participants mentioned how in the Netherlands, their mode choices were not only influenced by their motivation to bike, but their behaviour was nudged due to the deterrents for driving, such as the price of parking, trip length, and time. On the other hand, when participants were in Canada, free automobile parking was often available and easy to use, contributing to making cars the default mode, even for distances that participants would have cycled in the Netherlands. Consequently, participants had to have multiple other incentives and rationales for choosing cycling as their mode choice in Canada rather than it being the most obvious and default mode of choice. One of the big differences was that in Canada, participants willingly wanted to cycle, despite all the challenges. At the same time, in the Netherlands, it simply became the easiest, cheapest and often quickest way to get around.

The experiences of our participants illuminate a large gap in the policy tourism literature, where work is focused on how to transfer best practices for good cycling infrastructure, yet in order for this infrastructure to be used in low-cycling communities, driving also must be disincentivized as it is in the Netherlands. In the parking and transportation literature, pricing management strategies have become a more popular method for disincentivizing driving (Adam et al., 2020), yet future work should explore the effect of these strategies on mode choice and the cycling experience. Nevertheless, our findings reveal the importance of combining incentives for cycling as well as disincentives for driving to increase the attractiveness of cycling compared to other modes and planners and policymakers can use this information to support their active transportation strategies.

These insights are rendered visible through a better understanding of the lived experiences of those who have resided in Canada and the Netherlands. This approach centres how an individual’s own experiences can dramatically change when moving from one country to another, stressing the importance of comparing two different contexts with the same participants qualitatively rather than focusing on fact-finding policy touring visits or focusing on narrow, quantitative metrics to measure success. We therefore stress the need for planners and policymakers to centre the lived experiences of place when trying to learn from another country. This helps see the bigger picture and the variety of systems, land uses, rules, incentives and infrastructures that help shape how, where and why we cycle.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Canada Research Chairs Program; Hamilton Community Foundation

Notes

1. However the OV-Fiets, the country’s largest bikeshare network, is largely off-limits to foreigners, as it requires a Dutch bank account to set up an account. It should also be noted that these tourist-focused bicycle rental companies are much more expensive than bike rentals/bike share catering to the Dutch population.