“Velo-city 2017 will be hosted by the country that is praised as the ‘bicycle country of the world’, the Netherlands! For a whole generation of cycling professionals this will be the first opportunity to get to know the Dutch practice in Cycling.”
Today the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) announced the city-region of Arnhem-Nijmegen will be hosting the Velo-city conference in 2017.
“Cycling is coming home!” was the first reaction of the director of the Dutch Cyclists’ Union Hugo van der Steenhoven on Twitter.
Manfred Neun, President of the European Cyclists’ Federation said: “Arnhem-Nijmegen seems to be indeed ready to organize a fantastic conference in 2017, one that no participant ever will forget. We are already looking forward now to this additional boost the Dutch will give with Velo-city 2017 to the promotion of cycling and the exchange of best practices worldwide.”
In their press release the ECF further explains “The city-region Arnhem-Nijmegen was chosen due to the overall excellent quality of a very integral bid, presented by an excellent team, supported by strong political commitment from the authorities on all levels – including the national minister of transport – and the community of stakeholders, including the bicycle user organization Fietsersbond (member of ECF), the academia, knowledge institutions and the cycling industry.”
The message from the Dutch Minister of Infrastructure and the Environment
I would like to congratulate everybody involved in the bid with this great result. I too think that it is very good that so many cycling professionals will finally experience Dutch cycling first hand. You can see many pictures and videos, see lectures and read many publications, but nothing beats the actual feeling of cycling on the streets with the unrivalled cycle infrastructure of The Netherlands.
I have shown you some examples of the great cycling infrastructure in Nijmegen before. I will show you more of the Arnhem region on my blog in 2015.
As an illustration of the Nijmegen region, again some of my videos:
Nijmegen cycle bridge De Snelbinder
The International Cargo Bike Festival of 2014
A video showing ‘The Little Green One’ cycle bridge in Lent (Nijmegen).
Cycling in the hills near Nijmegen
A ride on the Nijmegen bridge ‘The Crossing’ (De Oversteek).
All Posts about Nijmegen
BICYCLE DUTCH 
This is great! I’ll have to figure out a way to make it over there.
in the video on the very long bicycle bridge, I see numerous motorized scooters riding on the bike bridge. Are such vehicles allowed? Or is there simply a lack of enforcement?
Yes, they are allowed, an unfortunate flaw in our road laws. All explained here.
This sounds like a “fly in the ointment” situation, and one that definitely needs to be addressed so that using bicycles can continue to be fun and safe in your country. Here in Canada, in many jurisdictions it is not even allowed to have an e-bike on the pathways.
This is generally something that’s done at the municipal level. Toronto bylaws for example state that ebikes must be using human power only in order to use city paths and bike lanes. Even though Ontario HTA makes no such requirement. I also think its important to distinguish between electric pedal bikes, and electric scooters which happen to also have pedals in order to meet the requirement of ebikes.
I am a Dutch guy that lives nearby that bridge. I have crossed it over a hundred times and have never seen anything happen there. We are used to having scooters and such on the cycle paths. This is completely safe and really not such a big hassle as you may think.
Looking forward to a massive celebration of cycling!