The municipality of Amsterdam is giving away over 3.000 refurbished bikes for free to residents and charities across the city. The bikes will be sourced from depots in Amsterdam.
According to Mobilieit.nl, the majority of the 3.250 bikes will be given to refugees and asylum seekers who have no experience of cycling and would like to learn how to ride a bike safely in the Dutch capital. The city also wants to use some of the bikes to teach more children living in Amsterdam how to cycle.
The city’s traffic alderman Melanie van der Horst wants the city’s residents to be able to travel around quickly and easily, so bikes provide an affordable alternative to public transport or driving cars. The city previously ran a similar project as a pilot programme, where 300 bikes were given away to the public - the success of that trial led the municipality to run it again on a larger scale.
The bikes will be sourced from many of Amsterdam’s full or near-full bicycle depots where the bicycles were taken (and can be reclaimed) after they were parked in the wrong place. This way, the city can remove some of the bikes that have been unclaimed in the depot for a long time, refurbish them, and give them a new life with an Amsterdam resident.