A Canta in a bikepark area in Amsterdam. Photo / Getty Images
A Canta in a bikepark area in Amsterdam. Photo / Getty Images
In Amsterdam, cars have been invading the bike lanes. OMG, yes, even in Amsterdam. But it’s not what you think. The culprits are microcars, vehicles so small and slow they can’t really mix in with normal cars on the road.
I know, somehow everything seems wrong about that sentence. Butit’s true.
Some of these microcars have specialist functions. The Canta is a disability vehicle: with some of them, you can open the back, roll your wheelchair all the way in, so you’re behind the steering wheel, and drive away. Brilliant.
Microlinos are easy to park in the city.
They’re smaller than a golf cart and have a top speed of 45km/h. Because they’re classed as mobility aids, they’re allowed on footpaths and cycleways and no one is worried about it.
In this country, NZ Post operates 400 Norwegian Paxsters with a similar dispensation: they deliver mail using the footpaths.
But there are also general-purpose microcars, like the Italian Biro. In Amsterdam, Biro owners took advantage of the go-anywhere rules designed for the Canta and started driving in the bike lanes and parking on the footpaths. Cyclists and pedestrians were not happy.
Nor were the courts. In 2019, a judge ruled that Biros were not mobility aids and had to stay off the footpaths and out of the bike lanes.
But that wasn’t ideal, either. For runabout city uses, microcars are desirable vehicles, especially compared to big SUVs: they make the roads safer, they don’t guzzle gas, they don’t require enormities of parking space and, if they were widely adopted, they would help with congestion. They’re ideal for supermarket shopping.
There are several on the market, including other Norwegian brands like the Buddy and Think City and the Swiss Microlino, a “bubble car” that can hit 90km/h.
And for all those people who don’t want to ride a bicycle, microcars are better than bikes – there, I said it. They keep you dry, they carry a bigger load and you can travel with another person.
Microcars keep you dry, they carry a bigger load than a bicycle and you can travel with another person. Photo / Getty Images
So how can they be encouraged but also kept off the footpath?
Amsterdam has introduced microcar parking permits, which are easier to get and cheaper than permits for full-size cars. That’s a good incentive.
But they also need safe road space. Lower speed limits help with that; so does having lots of them. But that won’t happen if it’s left to the market: vehicle manufacturers are so busy shoving big SUVs down our throats, it’s like they know the world is going to end. Oh, right.
Restricting the size of vehicle imports would really help, but are we ready for that?
With technology, disruption can happen fast. It took only about a decade in the 1910s for motor vehicles to replace horse-drawn carriages. But that was because they solved a massive problem: city streets were full of horse s***.
Now, even though you can’t see it or smell it, our streets are once again full of manure and it is, once again, a major threat to public health. Emissions, congestion and road safety mean we can’t keep driving enormous personal vehicles, mostly with one occupant in each.
But it isn’t yet obvious how we’re going to embrace the alternatives, whatever combination of rapid transit, bikes and microcars that might involve. Even if you could buy a microcar here, where would you drive it? Could we really make the streets safe for them?
And, ahem, would the off-road version catch on too? Microlino has made one.
