Yikes- bikes!

RUSH HOUR IN AMSTERDAM

There are surprisingly few cars on the streets of central Amsterdam. Everyone rides bikes. There are literally thousands of bikes. Every block has a hundred or so bikes parked in front of the houses, stores, and restaurants, and in the center of the city there are massive bicycle parking garages, with thousands and thousands of bikes.

Since most people don't have cars, they do all of their errands, shopping, and taking their kids to school by bicycle. It's not unusual to see people with 4 or 5 shopping bags dangling from their handlebars, or piled into large wooden boxes that sit above the front wheel of the bike.

Some bikes have a small front wheel, in order to accommodate an even larger wooden box, in which 2 (or 3 small) children can ride: sort of like a Dutch minivan.

The streets have designated bicycle lanes: not just a white stripe and a picture of a bike painted on the street, like in Chicago, but separate lanes with raised curbs. So far we haven't been involved in any collisions, but since I am not used to looking both ways for bikes when I cross the street, we've had a number of close calls.