I also find that biking makes it very easy to get from place to place inside of Amsterdam compared to cities at home like Baltimore. A bike is the perfect combination of the independence of a car and the convenience of public transit. With a car, you often have to drive somewhere and then find and pay for parking. It is much faster and cheaper to be able to park your bike wherever you want to. And with public transit, you spend time waiting for a train or bus to arrive. With a bike, you get to hop on and ride off whenever you want to!
The popularity of the bike is a classic example of the Dutch concern for the environment. In the 1970s, Amsterdam was mainly a car city. Then, people started to organize many protests against the car culture. This led to new laws creating bike lanes that made Amsterdam the bike-friendly city that it is today.
