[Ep. 1033] The Velo-city Conference 2024 took place in Ghent in Belgium in June 2024. This is my video report of the four day conference and host city Ghent (Gent/Gand). More information in the blog post: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/?p=25741
This is Ghent, the third largest city in Belgium. Ghent has a growing cycling modal share of 34% of all trips. In 2024, it was named the best cycling City in Belgium and last June the city hosted the international Velo-city conference. Ghent may be better known as a tourist destination because of its historic centre. But it also features 506 km of cycling infrastructure… with 180 km added since 2010. Key elements include 17.1 km of bicycle streets. Unlike in the neighboring country the Netherlands… cycle streets in Belgium do have a legal status. For example, this means that cars cannot pass cyclists. Despite this rule infractions sometimes occur. The city has 63 bike bridges and tunnels improving connectivity. One notable example is the Louisa d’Havé bridge over the river Scheldt. This 374 metre bridge, opened in 2020, efficiently handles even heavy morning traffic. The cycling network is well signposted, and bike counters at various locations display high rider numbers… even in the early morning. Cycling is also attractive in Ghent because a large central area… is closed to through car traffic. Previously, 40% of city traffic was through traffic. In 2017, the center was divided into six separate areas… requiring drivers to use the ring road to move between them. Through traffic must use the motorways even further outside the city. The European Cyclists’ Federation organised its annual Velo-city conference in and with Ghent from the 18th to the 21st of June 2024. The event attracted around 1600 delegates, endearingly called Velo-citizens, from over 60 countries, with more than 400 speakers, and 90 exhibitors. The conference connects cities with cycling Innovations… through talks, exhibits and bike tours. One such bike tour highlighted Ghent’s school streets initiatives, where streets near schools are closed to cars at the start and end of school hours. Making it safer for children with just a simple sign. However, as you can see here, just outside these streets… traffic can still be dangerous. The high number of children in cargo bikes is also an indication that parents do not think it is safe enough to let children cycle by themselves. The Velo-city conference took place in a velodrome: "’t Kuipke". Many speakers shared their wisdom with the audiences in a variety of halls… and in over 80 sessions. Velo-city is also known for its social events, such as the dinner party, and the public party concluding the bike parade. This year thousands of Ghent cyclists and delegates joined that parade, which also included a demonstration against cycling! It may be a sign of the times that not everybody immediately understood… that it was staged! The tour ended with a festival that lasted until late in the evening. The conference concluded with Ghent city leaders reluctantly handing over the Velo-city flag to Gdansk in Poland, for next year’s event. They expressed great satisfaction with the success of the Velo-city conference in their city. Finally, the city of Gdansk presented itself with a great show to invite everyone to come to Poland, in June 2025.
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I've always called it 'Gent' not 'Hent' but I'll bow to your knowledge on Dutch / Flemish pronounciation! Anyway, good to see Belgium taking it more seriously. Always been the poor relation of NL for cycling, but slowly we are all learning the value of safe cycling in cities.
damn this is belgium!
I'm very proud that I live in a city which is copying the scheme of inner city zones
Meanwhile we have a pedestrian bridge in the states that's been broken & closed for 6 months. Nobody cares to fix it because we're just dirty pedestrians
The staged anti-cycling protest seems like a weird thing to add to the event. I also thought it was real until you said otherwise
Meanwhile, in the British election, only the Green Party has even mentioned cycling infrastructure in their manifesto. Haven’t heard them actually talk about it at all though in interviews. And they’re polling at between 6 and 9% of the vote. So nothing will be done for another 5 years at least… when we’re already half a century behind.
Since the start of Velo-city in 1980, five conferences have been held outside Europe: Montreal, Canada (1992), Vancouver, Canada (2012), Adelaide, Australia (2014), Taipei City, Taiwan (2016) and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2018).
Are there plans to hold the conference in the USA in the future?
Good they included dissent even in a majorily agreeable thing and it's political cycling too. ❤ Ghent Area 150 sq km Pop 3 lakh Bike Lane – 500+ km Bhavnagar My City 100 sq km Pop 9 lakh Bike Lane 15+ km No City Bus Was Operational in Past No Safety in Bike Lane No Cycling Culture and Legal Status It's Either A Leisure Thing of Upper Caste Elite or A Daily Transit for Downtrodden Which Couldn't Afford Basic Pay and School kids only place were cars and motorcycles are banned for children 😅 obviously no safety features around the schools either.
And our town is spending a million on a car park. You know, for more cars.
With how easily crazy conspiracy theories take hold nowadays (anti-5G, anti-vax, flat-eartherism…) I also didn’t realize the protest was a joke
I live in Ghent, it's a great city 🙂
I'm surprised it almost always flies under the radar for cycling friendly cities, but maybe that's because it's not that big relatively speaking.
All appearances. Moving car transport does not solve the problems. On the contrary, there are more and more long traffic jams in Belgium, public transport is in short supply, buses and trams are stuck in traffic jams….
The green party is about to get voted out in Gent in October, just like in most towns and cities in Belgium. I wonder wonder why….
Gent mentioned! well I can confirm Gent is a bicycle city – everywhere is in your reach within more or less 15 minutes of bicycle ride. It's just amazing. However, the largest bicycle infrastructure investment recent year was the watersportbaan bridge. It has just opened a few weeks ago in june.
Take the Ghent about good biking infrastructure.
Il y a longtemps que j'allais tant de Bruges à Gand 🎵🎶
I wonder how well developed Polish cycling infrastructure is..
Bicycle streets are the worst! They are a sign of weakness and poor compromise.
They just annoy cars. And as a cyclist you feel unsafe and nervous for the cars that stay behind you.
The whole idea and implementation should be rolled back and cancelled!
never seen so much Tern GSDs on one place, before. Like it 😊
I live in Gdańsk and i am looking forward to this event next year!
City is relatively cycling friendly, but has A LOT to do to improve. Its cycling modal share is just 5%. Because of that i was surprised that this event will be held in my city.
It is a bit overrun with cars as they held 42% of modal share which is still rising. Fortunately they are making some changes to make city more pedestrian and bike friendly building more level crossings. They have plans for buiding a network of bike highways. So I hope that this conference and event will help improve cycling experience in the future.
I LOVE Ghent. The city center without cars is just amazing.
2:45 I've just learned that Ghent copied the temporary closing of the streets around schools from Bolzano (IT) … Why the rest of Italy hasn't done the same!?? 😣
its crazy home much more biking infrastructre you can build for the same money.
I like that 1 floor of an underground car park was flooded with thousands of bikes of the participants. (Found in the blog in the description 📦)
As many Americans are overweight and the declining middle class – people are forced to drive because the roads are too dangerous with the careless, reckless and drunk / drugged drivers.
In many areas lots of people drive cars in need of repairs, but the people can not afford them.
Bicycles are not free or cheap. When looked at price per pound, bicycles are very expensive.
I have 8 bicycles and for the cost I could have bought 2 nice automobiles.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Yep and that's why me and my wife no longer go to Gent. Unfortunate for the local merchants. We used to go shopping have a long lunch etc… bikers are mostly locals (I'm a biker too btw) problem is a city can't live on just locals . In the long run you will create poverty… but don't take my word for it…I couldn't care less. 😢
Does police still stop you when you're at the back of a bicycle? Because 'it's a 1 person mode of transportation'? Silly Belgium rules… 😅
2:36 that kid😅
Careful, Americans might be reading.
🖤💜💙🖤💜💙🖤💜💙🖤
I recently went to Ghent and Bruges and loved Ghent so much more because of this. In Bruges we had to constantly watch out for cars and trucks that were speeding through the historic center and even through the main square. In Ghent it was so pleasant to walk around and take the tram.
wish we could get lazy americans on bikes . and build a biking culture
Superb!! 34% of all trips made by bycycles!!😊😊😊😊
FAcTS of the Middle Ages of back water car fascist Denmark:
* 22% of all travel mde by bike in 2014 now down to 13%.
Denmark still culturally mimicking USA…🤮🤮
* The Netherlands has 27% of all travels made by bikes😊😊
* Ghent has 34% now👀👀😊😊
* Gronngen had 50% in 1997.
In 1994 planners tried to let Roskilde copy the solution of Groningen – THE best example worldwide back then.
However, the chamber of commerce in Roskilde, destroyed the plan for more bikes…(my thesis was exactly about these challenges and solutins).
* It took around 20 years before planners in Roskilde again were allowed to promote bicycle transport in Roskilde…
Paradise compared to the UK.
Great city compared to Chisinau❤
If you're looking into Belgian cities, I would love to welcome you to the smaller city of Mechelen. We had the bicycle city of 2022 award. Our whole city is a fietsstraat, we have schoolstraten at almost every school and recently we redid our ringroad to have it only one-way for cars to make room for more and bigger cycling lanes. The city is also redoing a lot of streets to make space for cyclists.
❤
I love Gent! visited and was very impressed
I hit 'like' so many times while watching this, I realized I was toggling it on & off. Great video. You have another subscriber.