20 June 2016 - Amsterdam has a persistent shortage of bicycle racks. Bicycle professor Marco te Brömmelstroet argues that this is really a matter of making choices: the space occupied by four parked cars could easily accommodate 30 bicycle racks.

23 April 2016 - How transparent are countries when it regards company data? Score of the Netherlands on Open Corporates’ Open Company Data Index, compared to other EU countries. Ordered by score and alphabetically on English name. Source Open Corporates, chart dirkmjk.nl.

6 April 2015 - A recent report by traffic research institute SWOV analyses accidents reported by cyclists on racing bikes in the Netherlands. Among other things, the data show an early summer dip in accidents: 53 in May, 38 in June and 51 in August. A bit of googling revealed this is a common phenomenon, although the dip appears to occur earlier than elsewhere (cf this analysis of cycling accidents in Montréal).

24 October 2014 - Minister Schultz wants to allow Amsterdam to ban scooters from cycle paths and make them use the road, wearing a helmet. This should make cycle paths safer for cyclists and reduce their exposure to air pollution. However, car and scooter lobbyists argue that the speed difference between scooters and cars is too large for scooters to ride safely on the road, with motorists driving 50 kmph.

15 August 2014 - In an intriguing opinion article in Thursday’s NRC Handelsblad, an author named Fred Feddes suggests banning parked cars from Amsterdam’s city centre. He argues that the current 15,000 parking spaces in the inner city take up 18ha, amounting to as much as 40% of the 45ha public space.