Bicycle highways as a ‘liquid’ policy concept

Abstract

The development and popularity of the e-bike is enabling an unexpected transport revolution, namely a substantive modal shift in regional commuting from car and transit to cycling. To achieve this, however, requires a major effort in constructing a high-quality and spacious cycling infrastructure connecting (sub)urban residential sites to nodes of work and study. In The Netherlands, such investments have resulted in the construction and planning of many new ‘fast’ cycleways, currently amounting to a list of 250 initiatives. Based on 25 interviews with planners, engineers and lobbyists, this paper traces the development of the fast-cycle path concept in The Netherlands the perspectives of ‘articulation’ and ‘liquidity’. We find that fast-cycle routes emerge as whole, coherent entities through six separate vocabularies, namely of demonstration, quality framing, policy order and contract, planning diplomacy, financial wizardry and design negotiation. Each vocabulary gives rise to a ‘global form’ fuelling the ‘currency’ and performativity of the fast-cycle route concept. Different contexts also induce considerable differentiation, raising the question how far the concept may be stretched.