The first Dutch city to completely ban wide bicycles
The city of Enschede has become the first Dutch municipality to agree to ban fatbikes in the city center, despite the reservations expressed by municipal official Mark Twitlink, according to the Dutch broadcasting agency NOS.
Most members of the municipal council voted in favor of the ban, despite Tweetlink's warnings about the difficulty of implementing the decision. He said before the vote: "The standard ban on Fatbix is simply not possible. We will try to come up with a trick to achieve it, and this is how I explain the proposal."
The proposal was made by the parties VVD, Volt, Burgerbelangen Enschede, and CDA, where the leader of the VVD faction, Rachel DeniBoom, considered the ban to be absolutely necessary, stating: "The fatbike is a scooter disguised as a bicycle. We will ban it from the city center just as we did with scooters before." The proposal involves amending the general municipal laws (APV), which are a set of local regulations regarding public order and safety, to officially ban fatbikes. Twitlink confirmed that he would check if it could be implemented with some "trick".
In contrast, Robin Wessels from the GroenLinks party strongly criticized the decision, considering it creates unrealistic expectations. He said: "This is probably the strangest discussion I have witnessed during my years of work here. It feels like a kindergarten." Peter van Eijk from the Van Ek/Woltjer group described the proposal as "completely absurd and nothing more than a spectacle."
It is worth noting that the city of Enschede has previously banned various types of vehicles in its center since September 2020, including scooters and fast bicycles. Cars and trucks are only allowed to enter in exceptional cases, such as loading and unloading operations.