As cities embrace bicycles, let’s not forget pedestrians. Thousands of bikes parked on sidewalks in Amsterdam force pedestrians into streets where they face even more bikes. Seeing Eye dog Mylo rose to the challenge, and I felt safer having him by my side. It’s my hope city planners around the world design obstruction-free pedestrian pathways, and implement policies so they stay barrier-free.
Descriptive Transcript
Seeing Eye dog Mylo and Haben, wearing a puffy purple coat, walk down a red brick sidewalk.
Haben: Amsterdam’s narrow, crowded streets energize my guide dog Mylo! He weaves through the people.
Mylo and Haben quickly approach a group of three people who part to let them through.
Haben: Vans half on the sidewalk, he glides past them.
Mylo navigates around a large delivery van that has two tires up on the sidewalk.
Haben: The really hard part… all the bikes!
Mylo pauses as three bikes zip past us. He cautiously maneuvers around parked bikes on the sidewalk.
Haben: So many bikes! And they pop up quickly. From behind. From in front, from all directions!
Mylo looks over his shoulder, then swings his body protectively in front of Haben. A biker zooms by. After the bike passes, Mylo continues walking.
Haben: A lot of the paths where we were walking were shared with bikes. On one sidewalk, the street was on one side and on the other side the canal. But between us and the canal, is a railing, and hundreds of bikes were using that railing as their bike rack.
A line of parked bikes face boats floating in the canal. On the street, a car – followed by a moped – makes a slow turn to avoid a group of people on bikes.
Haben: As we were walking down, a person coming towards us had to step into the street to go around because the sidewalk plus the bikes just didn’t have enough room.
Mylo keeps Haben on the narrow sidewalk as people step into the street to get around.
Haben: Then Mylo stops. I reach down…
She touches his nose and he nudges her hand toward the object.
Haben: …and it’s a bike! Of course, it’s Amsterdam!