When Dhruv Rathee attacked cars (not government)

On his visit to Amsterdam in the Netherlands in November 2019 Dhruv Rathee recorded and later on January 1 uploaded a 20minute video on his YouTube channel A week later the clip garnered nearly nine lakh views The numbers didnt matter to him For Rathee had already confessed on his social media account that this was the best video on his channel until thenIts saying quite a bit since this competes with 235 others that the 25yearold has uploaded on the channel since its launch in 2015 Titled simply Inside Worlds No 1 Cycling City the video is a ground report on how Amsterdam developed its infrastructure over the years to reduce the number of cars on streets The clip begins with interesting detail pointing at how the number of cycles in Amsterdam is equal to the population of the citymdash850000He adds in the video About 19 per cent of the people living here in Amsterdam use cars The area of the entire city is 200 square kilometers and the cycling tracks laid down here are more than 400 square kilometersWith over 292 million subscribers to his channel Ratheemdashwho moved from Delhi to Germany in 2011mdashis known for his thoughtprovoking videos that mostly discuss current affairs in Indiamdashfrom elections to violence inspired by religious intolerance But the Amsterdam video is special As a child I loved cycling Interestingly it is a common activity in European countries So whenever I come down to India I wonder why cant we have infrastructure that makes commuting easy for people This is why I chose this subject for the video he addsIn the video Rathee talks of how Amsterdam switched to being a cycleproud city Between 1950 and 1960 there was an economic boom and cars had begun to become popular in Amsterdam The government even began demolishing buildings to widen roads But the increased popularity of cars brought with it a rise in traffic accidents Around 1971 in just one year more than 3300 people were killed in road accidents in Amsterdam of which 400 were children Thats when people started realising that the cars were detrimental for the city and started the Stop de Kindermoord Stop Child Murders movement he explains The oil crisis of 1973 made it difficult for people to afford motor vehicles and the government started encouraging people to use bicycles instead As the years passed a network of cycling tracks were built around the city Taking us through the multidecker underground parking facility for bikes in the video Rathee says This model can be replicated in IndiaRathee lays down some solutions that would similarly help decongest Indian roads reduce the number of accidents and make commute simpler here Speaking over the phone from Germany he suggests restricting entry of cars block by block In popular public spaces we can start blocking the entry of cars This way slowly people will get used to using bikes Eventually we can replicate this model across entire cities He says a similar experiment was tried in Delhi but failed Connaught Place is one of Delhis most crowded spaces However the shopkeepers in the market complained that if the entry of cars is blocked revenues would fallHe adds that that usage of cycles would also reduce parking area neededmdash10 bikes can stand where one car took up space Research has shown that a car lane can be used by a maximum of 1600 people per hour whereas a cycling lane allows 7500 people per hour Of course temperatures are better in Europe than in India and that often poses a hindrance To this Rathee suggests We can use escooters or ebikes For that lesser effort is requiredCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates