Bicycle-Oriented Development: How the Dutch Railroad Shaped Urban Planning and Discovered Cyclists along the Way, 1960-1990

Abstract

Scholars often describe the history of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) from an exclusive urban development perspective (linear or finger cities) or from a limited mobility perspective (Public Transit). In these histories, walking is described as the yardstick for a station’s catchment area. Using primary sources, this article shows how between 1960 and 1990 the Dutch railroads played a forgotten but key and unique role in enriching the TOD concept in the densely populated Western Netherlands with the bicycle as a feeder mode. This created a spatial model of a belt with compact bicycle towns along railroad lines. In the process, the railroad reinforced by local and national policies since then helped create cycling-based rather than walking-based fifteen-minute cities that generated larger catchment zones.