Much of the Dutch cycling infrastructure innovations, pilots and research news doesn’t reach us unfortunately. That is too bad, as there is a lot happening. Of course, we get to see the cute pictures of people cycling in ‘fietsstraten’, happy children in cargo bikes and large three story parking garages with thousands of bikes, but not the more research oriented material.
One of the ways I stay informed is to follow Dutch organisations such as Crow and Fietsberaad with lots of good information on cycling in the Netherlands. Their communication is in Dutch, but with the click of a button in your browser or your email it translates the information instantly into English, with only the odd mistake here and there.
Unfortunately, Fietsberaad and Crow’s websites were blocked for Canadian readers. In December 2022 I emailed the organisation with the suggestion that their server likely has a problem but the answer I received was that it had been brought up before and it had been forwarded to the manager and there is no solution for it. I didn’t receive an answer to a follow up email a year later in December 2023 anymore. I have always found it odd, because why would I be able to renew my passport, check a bank account, see the Dutch national archives on line but not a bicycle website.
Fast forward to January 2025. I see a reaction to a post on Mastodon by someone from Crow. I whisper in his ear that we can’t see the CROW and Fietsberaad websites because they are blocked and we don’t understand why. Fortunately this gentleman is more responsive and makes it his personal mission to open the websites to Canada again. This too goes to a manager who approaches the server provider eventually and it turns out many countries were blacklisted on their servers, including Canada. There was indeed a time that the Dutch ING bank blacklisted Canadian servers too for not being secure enough. This however was probably at least fifteen years ago.
To make a short story shorter, both the websites of Fietsberaad and Crow are now accessible again, which is great news for Canadian active transportation planners and people active in traffic safety, professionals and activists alike.
Bottom line: do your own research, don’t give up bugging people, look for other ins into an organisation.
Fietsberaad: https://fietsberaad.nl
Crow: https://www.crow.nl
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