Nearly four years ago I moved to Zagreb after living in Amsterdam for four years. Though ignorant of the language, the city, and the culture, I knew that riding my bike was about to get much harder. It was a bad sign that Google Maps didn’t (and still doesn’t) support directions by bike, routing me as a pedestrian from Jarun to the Filozofski fakultet along the Savski nasip. Though that doesn’t seem so bad anymore (at least pre-Greenway construction), it felt like an insult coming from smoothly paved Dutch bike lanes.
Zagreb continues to surprise me in all the ways its transportation infrastructure debases people on bikes. Narrow “bike lanes” imposed on already-narrow sidewalks, making both riding a bike and walking unpleasant. Jolting transitions down from sidewalks to cross intersections and back up again. “Sharrows” and 30-kilometer-per-hour signs painted on roads that fade away in a matter of months. Alongside a culture that privileges people who drive (and actively encourages them to park on sidewalks/in ”bike lanes”), it amazes me to see how many people brave the indignity and danger of riding a bike in Zagreb.
Amsterdam formerly suffered from similar infrastructural and cultural problems, but drastically changed both after activists campaigned for an end to traffic deaths in the 1970s. Slowly but surely the city government improved the quality of life for everyone in the city by making bicycling the safest, easiest, and most comfortable way to move around.
Separating cars from bikes from people on foot was key. Three photos show four different ways to cross the Enneüs Heerma bridge: on foot, on bike, by car, and by tram. In the bike lanes, people ride side by side, chatting along their journey. Tiny cars for one person with limited mobility are allowed to drive slowly in bike lanes. Squads of youth ride BMX bikes, not terribly comfortable for city riding, but manageable when the biggest hills are gentle slopes over bridges.
These images show the utter banality of bike riding in Amsterdam. It’s not a hobby for the weekend. Not only is it socially acceptable to bike to work, it is expected. When you go out, it’s annoying if someone doesn’t have a bike. Even if it’s raining, you ride your bike. And Amsterdam gets nearly 10 times as much rain each year as Zagreb!
I can appreciate how safe and uneventful it is to bike in Amsterdam having biked extensively in Paris, New York, and London. Yet, in none of those more ‘exciting’ cities did I experience anything close to the level of hostility that I receive from drivers in Zagreb: honking, shouting, swearing, passing too close and too fast, turning across the bike lane. A bicycle infrastructure that asks people on bikes to put themselves at risk by ‘sharing’ the road with hostile drivers or otherwise endanger pedestrians by riding on sidewalks is no bicycle infrastructure at all.
“I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.” Zagreb is a relatively small and flat city with a mild climate – perfect conditions for riding a bike! If only it had the infrastructure and culture to match.
Author: Marisa Cortright
