So where on earth did all these people come from? The answer is maybe the least appreciated fact about Dutch bicycling.
A nice article talking about why Dutch streets are filled with bikes, despite the fact that, in terms of miles traveled, the Dutch hardly bike at all. In short: shops, offices, schools, entertainment, and all the other things people use and do on a daily basis are mixed in with residences (and there is enough local density to support shops and such without relying on car traffic).
That means that most people simply live within a mile of all the things they do, making riding a bike a very practical way of getting around.
American car-oriented zoning mandates that residential, commercial, industrial, and offices all be separated into their own neat little zones, typically with very wide roads and large parking lots and grass buffer space in between that pushes everything impractically far apart for people who would rather walk or wheel.
The point of this article is really to point out that the Dutch don’t bike because they are culturally so different from American, because that isn’t why. They bike because lots of things to do are close to home, which just isn’t allowed in modern American zoning. The most bikeable or walkable places in America are typically the places that were built up before the 1950s, before zoning turned car-oriented.
People in America like to talk about Dutch cycling infrastructure, and if we could just copy that, we too would have bikers everywhere. Bike-specific infrastructure certainly helps cyclists feel safer, but ultimately it’s convenience and not bike lanes that gets people on bikes in droves; the convenience of being able to get somewhere by bike because it’s close. And that’s a zoning issue, not an infrastructure issue.
Compact, mixed-use neighborhoods and cities are key.