Those who alight from trains at Amsterdam Central Station are flung into an urban maelstrom. With 200,000 daily riders, the station is a critical hub for trains, but also for trams, ferries across the IJ River, and bicycles, with a key east–west cycling path running parallel to the vast building.

Bicycles, which account for over 60 percent of all city-center trips and half of all daily commutes into the city, are everywhere in Amsterdam. They fill the streets, packed into unsightly metal-framed multistory bike parks and also locked to bridges, railings, and lampposts as a form of urban decoration. In the Netherlands, a country of 17 million people and 23 million bicycles, these vehicles are a key consideration in all urban-design projects, not only in movement, but also in storage.