Dutch Cycling Embassy members share their wisdom with Richmond at open house event

One thing that irks Ian C. Hess about cycling around Richmond is the infrastructure. 

“[It] often feels like you're going to die,” he said. “The notion of what biking infrastructure is, is painting a picture of a bike on the ground. And as nice as that is, that means nothing to motorists and I drive a car. If I don't pay attention, I'm going to get hit.”

The city’s cycling infrastructure and what it can become is one reason why Hess came to meet two members of the Dutch Cycling Embassy at an open house Friday at Richmond’s Main Street Station. 

Their visit, at the request of the Department of Public Works, comes on the heels of elementary school principal Gregory Muzik getting rear-ended by a driver while riding his bike on Patterson Avenue on March 11. 

Muzik, who is the principal at Mary Munford Elementary School and has life-threatening injuries, was honored also on Friday with a family bike ride in which hundreds of cyclists showed up to support him.

According to the city’s Vision Zero Dashboard, there were 53 accidents where an injury was reported involving a cyclist during 2024. Vision Zero is a global goal that cities and countries adopt to reduce all traffic fatalities and serious injuries down to zero. For Richmond, the end date is 2030, according to their adopted Vision Zero plan. 

The two representatives from the non-profit Dutch Cycling Embassy spent their time in workshops with bike advocates, city staff and Mayor Danny Avula.

“The mayor was actually here today. He was the one who opened the workshop,” said Margot Daris, project manager at the Dutch Cycling Embassy. “He showed political leadership. He showed that he also thinks this is an important topic. So it was really great having him here.”

Daris said the embassy helps to bring the Dutch cycling knowledge and experience to other cities and regions. She said the workshops focused on a couple of case studies to improve the cycling conditions for people living and working in the city.

“They were super interested in learning new things, but then also immediately applying it to their own context. So it's never just copy pasting from the Netherlands,” said Daris. “It's always using that experience and then applying it to their own streets and neighborhoods.”

Daris’ colleague, senior transport planner Marco Mulder, said their short stay in the city didn’t allow enough time to fully check out all of the cycling infrastructure but they were able to get some perspective by looking at maps and walking from their hotel to the train station. 

Mulder said if he had to grade the city’s biking infrastructure, it would have to be broken into two categories. 

“I'd say in terms of potential, it's a nine. At the moment, infrastructure-wise, I'd have to say it's below what the average grade would be in the Netherlands, which is a six. So it's more like four, five,” he said.

Daris agreed, adding much of the city's bike lanes are disconnected. 

“We saw that at the end of Main Street, the bike lane just ends at the intersection, whereas at the intersection, it's very important to have the safety aspect,” she said.

Daris did give Richmond kudos for the nearby 17th Street Market, which was closed to traffic some years ago.

“It's like a really nice pedestrianized area with restaurants and shops, and it felt like we were in Europe,” she said. “It was so nice to be there, and we heard that there are festivals and terraces in the summer, and I think that's just a really great example of what you can also do in other areas in Richmond.”

Richmond’s Transportation Engineering Program Manager Andy Boenau said it’s important to hear perspectives from all over the world, especially from those he says are doing premier work.

“Who's top of the food chain right now? That's the Dutch,” he said. “It was an all-day immersive training workshop where we got a little bit of lecture from them about how they approach network connection and intersection and street design.”

Boenau said the ultimate goal is to help direct a cultural change in how everyone views biking in a city.

“The huge difference that we want to be able to copy is what happened [in Amsterdam]. What were the key points in time when they said, ‘Enough, there's no room, what do we do?’” he said. “It's not safe to just mix up car traffic and people traffic, human beings walking and riding bikes all the time.”

He said the day was a combination of learning the Dutch philosophy from how they evolved Amsterdam from a traffic heavy city into a mecca for safe biking. 

“So if we're gonna build a healthy city, that means a city where it's easy and convenient to get on your bike and ride around,” Boenau said. “And so that's why you're seeing over the last several years, the expansion of the bicycle network and not just a lane here and a lane there, but as quickly as we can connecting links.”

Avid biker Hess, who briefly lived in Amsterdam, said he thinks the perspective the Dutch can give to the city’s engineers is invaluable.

“Amsterdam came out of a swamp, there was nothing there,” he said. “So they're like, ‘How do we make this a place that everyone wants to live in?’ And it seems like everything since the creation of Amsterdam, they've only doubled down on what makes a place. They answer the question of what makes a place worth living at.”

Hess says as much as he loves Richmond, he just doesn’t see the same infrastructure yet. 

“It's just like, we take what's not working and just let it stay. And it just keeps on being a problem,” he said. “I really hope that Richmond incorporates a Dutch mindset around bicycling. They're just, they're simply too good at what they do.”