[sustran] What the mayor doesn't always tell you about bike modal share, Part Two - Immigrant-focused cycle training?

[Todd Edelman]

*Slow Factory blog: What the mayor doesn't always tell you about bike 
modal share, Part Two - Immigrant-focused cycle training?*

"Unfortunately there are not really municipalities or politicians that 
want to 'go' for this topic. It has not been so in the past, and not now 
either," says Angela van der Kloof, a sustainable mobility consultant 
working at Mobycon in the Netherlands.

The vast majority of training happens informally, like in many other 
places -- well, where parents bother - typically where parents teach 
their kids. Children receive traffic theory classes in their schools 
starting from age 6, and many take an on-street test by age 10 or 11.

Angela continues: "Formal cycle training in NL has focused on women who 
were not born in the Netherlands. In the 1970s, women - mostly from the 
Mediterranean-area - were able to join their husbands who had emigrated 
for work. They had instruction in language, sewing, knitting and 
handicrafts, and then started to ask for cycling instruction. The formal 
training began in the 1980s, organised at first in a grassroots way by 
volunteers."

To continue reading click on 
http://greenideafactory.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-mayor-doesnt-always-tell-you-about_22.html

-- 
Todd Edelman
Green Idea Factory / SLOWFactory

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