Originally published in DUTCH the Magazine, September/October 2023
If sustainable transport is the wave of the future, Amsterdam has been riding the crest for decades. With the debut of two cutting-edge bicycle parking facilities built not on land or underground, but underwater, the city has again climbed on board an ongoing swell of public sentiment for a cycling-centric urban center built around the needs of people and human-powered transport, not cars.
Opened in January 2023 with parking for 7,000 bikes, the Stationsplein garage is literally under the water of the port fronting Amsterdam Central Station. Built for €60 million, it’s the first of its kind in the world but just the latest in centuries of engineering marvels demonstrating Dutch mastery over water.
The four-year project entailed damming the open harbor between Prins Hendrikkade and Central Station, dredging out layers of sand, pumping the basin dry, laying a reinforced-concrete floor, shipping in giant support columns by barge, installing a roof, and submerging the whole shebang underwater.
An Uncluttered Landscape
An uncluttered landscape with wide pedestrian and bike paths now replaces the messy chaos that once surrounded the station. Gone are the untidy, above-ground bike racks, including the infamous fietsflat that had itself become an unsightly tourist attraction and local embarrassment. Below calm waters, Stationsplein is invisible to land-bound eyes save for the blue sign with a bike logo at the end of the path leading to its above-ground entrance and rolling beltways descending below the waterline. The sign reveals how many parking places are available.
A pair of slow-moving “travelators” provide a revealing, albeit languid trip nine meters-deep underwater, to a bright space for 6,300 personal bikes and 700 OV-Fiets rentals.
Red and green lights on numbered vertical columns indicate which rows have open spaces. Two-tier racks include designated spots for larger two-wheelers and those with baskets, panniers and children’s seats. At the far end of the garage, escalators ascend to metro and train stations, enabling direct access to public transport with no detours and minimal exposure to the elements.
Stepping into An Oyster
After winning a 2018 City Council competition for the Stationsplein project, Rotterdam-based Wurck decided on “water” as a theme. Imagining people rolling their bikes into an oyster, designers used jagged natural basalt stone on entry walls to replicate a jagged exterior.
A bright-white interior suggests the oyster’s smooth inside layer. On a single, well-lit floor, giant pillars define a central colonnade wide enough to accommodate several people walking side-by-side with their bikes. The futuristic columns flare to join a ceiling punctuated with circular light fixtures that simulate underwater skylights.
A 50-meter “horizon” wall created in collaboration with the Amsterdam Museum features pixelated photos of the Dutch capital in different eras.
The “pearl” in the oyster – a maintenance-repair shop framed by curved glass that doubles as space for 24/7 management – is near the underwater entrance. For efficient movement, locals can use their OV-chip cards to open automated gates; visitors check in with a bicycle tag, a smart sticker attached to their bikes that can be linked to a subscription. Parking is free for the first 24 hours and €1.35 for each additional day, making the facility convenient for daily commuters while motivating the timely removal of bikes.
Two sgraffito artworks, including “The Traffic Accident” by Lex Horn, adorn walls at the garage’s far end. Created in 1965 for the Jan Swammerdam Institute, they were preserved when the university building was demolished in 2004 and now send a cautionary message at Stationsplein.
Moving Forward by Going Back
A second underwater garage debuted in February 2023 on IJboulevard at the rear of Amsterdam Central Station. Built beneath the IJ River for an estimated €25 million, it can store some 4,000 bicycles, bringing the collective capacity of the new facilities to 11,000. At an opening ceremony, a city spokesperson called the underwater garages, “the beginning of a new era in which Amsterdam Central Station becomes a bit like around 1900: accessible and enjoyable, without cars and bicycles parked everywhere and nowhere.”
By 2030, when another garage is expected to open with racks for nearly 9,000 bikes, capacity will double to 22,000 indoor spaces – nearly twice that of Utrecht’s underground garage, which previously held the record at 12,000 spots.
The new bike parking facilities are part of a larger overhaul of Amsterdam’s central transport hub, where an estimated 250,000 travelers arrive daily by tram, train, foot, ferry and bike.
Launched in 2017, the mammoth project will reduce space for cars, facilitate navigation by cyclists and pedestrians, and amplify water as a design feature. In a city where 35% of residents use bikes for daily transport, it extends decisions made in the 1960s through early ’70s, when Dutch citizens joined enlightened politicians in demanding less car-centric, more livable urban spaces.
Foundation for a Cycling Utopia
The Netherlands has not always been a country where bicycles outnumber residents. How it became a land of 17.2 million people owning 22.8 million two-wheelers (about 1.3 bikes per person), with more than 35,000 kilometres of bike paths and a capital boasting the world’s first underwater bicycle parking facilities, is the result of nearly a century of informed urban design. From the early 20th century, when the Royal Dutch Touring Club began advertising bikes as a smart means of transport, cycling has seeped into Dutch DNA, becoming an integral part of lifestyles throughout the Netherlands.
By 1936, when Dutch Princess Juliana – later nicknamed “the Biking Queen” – rode a tandem with German Prince Bernhard on her first appearance as an engaged royal, the Netherlands had become Europe’s epicenter of bikes.
While Hitler’s bicycle blitzkrieg left deep scars, the Golden Age of Dutch cycling that peaked in the 1930s experienced a post-war revival. As fuel shortages continued long after World War II ended, its popularity grew with the ’50s baby boom. At the same time, an influx of American services and goods, including cars, arrived in the Netherlands via the US Marshall Plan, through which the US Congress appropriated $13.3 billion for European recovery.
For the first time, automobiles threatened to outnumber bikes in Amsterdam. As highways were rebuilt, cars became affordable for a thriving middle class. With their rising popularity, policymakers developed plans to radically change Dutch cities with new roads and centers designed for easy movement of cars. The tide turned in the 1960s, when Amsterdammers turned out in droves to protest plans for new, car-friendly infrastructure.
To this day, locals are proud “the highway plan that almost destroyed Amsterdam” – involving demolition of working-class De Pijp and the Kinkerbuurt to make way for highways and high-rise buildings – was never implemented. Also halted were plans for the Singelgracht to be filled in and transformed into a six-lane highway, as well as construction of a road over Nieuwmarkt.
1960s planners viewed cars as the travel mode of the future. As a result, swaths of Amsterdam were destroyed to make way for highways. Photo credit: Fotocollectie Anefo/Society for the Nationaal Archief
Prioritizing Bikes and Pedestrians Over Cars
As a result of the anti-highway protests, the city banned large-scale motorways. At the same time, the Dutch were becoming keenly aware of the dangers posed by cars. In 1971, 3,200 people died on highways in the Netherlands, including 400 children under age 14. To boost road safety, especially for vulnerable children, the Stop de Kindermoord foundation worked with locals to tackle neighbourhood traffic problems. It also organized the first Nationale Straatspeeldag, when dozens of residential streets were closed to cars so children could play safely outdoors near their homes.
Finally convinced bikes were safer than cars, and that cyclists and pedestrians must be protected, Dutch activists founded the Eerste Enige Echte Nederlandse Wielrijdersbond – now called the Fietsersbond – in 1975. Its primary purpose, particularly timely following the 1973 oil crisis: affirming the bike as the environmentally-friendly alternative to the car.
On car-free Sundays, the Dutch learned about climate change and the environmental impact of cars, leading to a pivotal rethinking of city design. Grocery stores, malls, cinemas and schools all would be situated within cycling distance of residential areas to reduce the need for cars. Accessible public transport further enhanced ease of movement as the Netherlands evolved into the poster child for sustainable, human-powered transit.
Cyclists, moped riders and a cargo bike at a car-free crossing in Amsterdam, 1973. Photo credit: Fotograaf Onbekend / Anefo
In the decade between 1978 and 1988, the Dutch government increased the Netherland’s bike network by 73% – from 9,300 kilometers to 16,100 kilometers – compared to an 11% growth of the highway network. Since the ’90s, that’s more than doubled, with city centers being redesigned to prioritize the needs of cyclists and pedestrians over drivers. While keeping emissions out of the environment, car-free zones preserve medieval alleyways meant for horse-drawn carriages and bikes, not gas-powered vehicles. The increasing popularity of e-bikes capable of traveling long distances further decreases the need for cars in a tiny, flat-as-a-pancake country.
A Cycling Nirvana
But geography is just one of many factors that contributed to the Netherlands’ metamorphosis from a car-centric country to a cycling nirvana. The foundation was laid back in the 1960s, when locals joined politicians in rejecting new, car-friendly infrastructure. It’s supported today with the government’s goal of climate-neutrality through net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. While a higher power may have created the world, the Dutch will continue to build infrastructure designed for sustainable transport, in cities unhampered by the road rage, traffic congestion and air pollution that comes with cars.
