Copenhagen: City of Cyclists, Part 3 of 5: We’re headed downtown to mix it up with traffic in Copenhagen. Get a good look at not only the green cycle routes across the city, but also the curb-protected roadside “cycle tracks”, the blue-painted intersection pavement guides, and bicycle-specific traffic lights. What an amazing mix they’ve accomplished, with not only a third of their commuting population bicycling in each day, but in a system so well thought out that kids and families ride through the city right along with them. But first, saying a big hello is Bill Mould, Chief Mechanic of Spokes Etc in Alexandria, Virginia. We’ll be visiting Bill soon for some helpful coaching to keep your bike spinning strong.
Video Rating: 4 / 5
@kkldk18 It is smart to make people pay more for cars, cars cause road deaths, pollution etc, bikes cause little or no damage, and are non polluting, as well as taking up less space.
@abestjundk We have a cycle marathon called Post Danmark (i think)
@abestjundk
Well, I dunno about bike festivals per se … but we have bicycle races, sure.
It’s a sport here in denmark, just as it is in all other countries as well.
The real difference is that we use the bicycle a lot in real life as well, not just in sports. I’d say that’s the real clincher, not the races or other happenings … but the day to day uses.
Mind you, bicycle infrastructure is costly, and that’s the main reason why it’s not popular with city planners around the world.
I just wonder if there were festival for cyclists in Denmark. With marathon or exhibition to tour around the country. Or I just missed and did not found yet the posted video. I am just intrigue.
Proper bike tracks .. pedestrians go on the sidewalk offcourse.
Offcourse, it’s even easier in a car, then I have two ringways and twomotorways to choose from, plus a couple of b-roads. All depending on what part of copenhagen I want to go to.
As I mentioned in another post .. you can look it up on google maps.
A COUPLE, of bike tracks, that go 15 km into Copenhagen.. WOW!
Are they bike tracks or do you share them with pedestrians?
A train as well..
We are so backward where I live
On a sidenote, if you are curious about what it looks like where I live, go to google maps and search for “Denmark lyngby nybrovej 165″ you’ll see a sandy colored bungalow with a gray base if you zoom all the way in to street level view
Now, follow the bicycle path south until you reach a roundabout, grab a left turn, then go right when you get to the motorway … that goes ALL the way into copenhagen.
See the road for yourself.
Awfully empty of bicycles, innit ?
There is indeed a bicycle track all the way to copenhagen .. a couple in fact, depending on what route I choose.
Also, any major roads have some space reserved for mopeds/bicycles/pedestrians, as a minimum, we have done that all over Denmark for about 40 years or so.
And yes, there’s a train station about 1.5 km from where I live, and it does indeed have trains for copenhagen.
But then, I choose to live here, because I didn’t have the money for a car back then, so that’s no surprise.
No but it is supposed to be one of the better cities for cycling in Australia (though you won’t believe it if you ever do come down and manage to not get killed cycling around the city). Maybe you could cycle the Hume:) it is just around the bleedin corner by crikey!
Yes I will. Melbourne isnt one of the cycling capitals of the world though!
Come off it Krunchy, you won’t even travel down the little road to Melbourne… Copenhagen indeed.
I would love to go to Copenhagen if I could afford to travel there, and would like to. That would change if you became just another city. Copenhagen is considered to be one of the best cycling cities in the WORLD. Dont give that up!!
What happens in Australia though is that people live in one city and travel to work in another. Personally I would not have a problem riding 15kms to work, particularly if the landscape is flat.
Can you ride from where you are to Copenhagen on a bicycle track? Is there a train going from where you are to Copenhagen?
Where I am we dont really have bicycle tracks, we have some shared paths which you share with pedestrians. I will show you our “bicycle lanes”, you will see what I mean!
Oh, but there’s more to copenhagen than just bicycling.
though it *is* getting a lot of coverage these days.
And yes, if I had to cover 30km, I’d probably take my car as well, maybe a train if it stops real close to my destination, because then I can read a book while travelling.
And it is possible to make an infra structure that can support both cars and bicycles.
Video’s are always welcome, if nothing else, then for seeing where people come from.
I live in Lyngby, a city 15 km north of Central copenhagen, but still sorta considered a part of greater copenhagen.
We still have bicycle paths here.
We have local shops, and local work, we con’t have to go to copenhagen center to get work. That’s sorta what I’ve been aiming at the whole time.
But i can also take a car, if that strikes my fancy.
I have choice, things are good!
Don’t get me wrong, I actually moved to another town a while back for personal reasons, and because of that I could not safely cycle to where my friends where and there was no train so I had to drive. So in this respect I sympathise with you.
But that is an argument for a train, not an argument for cars. If you go down the path you are suggesting cars will rule, and your cities charm will VANISH. People will say Copenhagen, just another city, NOT Copenhagen one of the best cycling cities.
OK, I think its time I sent in a video response to try to show you where I live. The population of Newcastle Australia, is around 500 K , not including Lake Macquarie (which basically is the same city, (because they built up towards each other), so its similar to Copenhagens.
Because the city has a low density it stretches more then 30kms into the suburbs. There is no real centre to Newcastle, Hardly anyone rides a bike, around 95% of the population travel by car. Do you really want that?
I’m not sayinf that more cycles is a massive failure, I’m saying having ONLY cycles will end in a massive failure.
That, and they have so many cycles it’s scary.
(bicycles, motorcycles, mopeds .. et al.)
And no mode of transport should ever be scary, no matter what you are using.
As for getting a velomobile, well, that has another problem .. no room for me kids.
Urban Sprawl can be turned into something resembling a sub city is all I’m saying.
As for farmland, feh … we have enough arable farmland on the earth to feed ourselves 4-5 times, if it was used as well as it is in western europe.
And a well designed Urban Sprawl will not make you more dependant on cars than any other part of a metropolitan area. Unfortunately, most urban sprawls are poorly designed. That’s why they need more development if they are outside the public transport mesh.
WHY would even more bicycles be a MASSIVE failure?
The reason those countries you refer to have bicycles is because the people are poor, but they also dont have good bicycle design built into their city. That is why they have a breakdown in rules.
Making car driving SCARY? HUH, LOL In car centred countries riding a bike can be SCARY.
You wnat more cyclists and less car drivers. If you live further out get a velomobile, you dont get wet and can travel faster.
What your saying does happen with urban sprawl, BUT, what also happens is that people live in more affordable area’s and then travel longer distances to where the work is. They then become car dependent and the bicycle goes out the window as a form of transport and is considered a play thing for exercise or sport, rather than transport. Urban sprawl also means what was once natural countryside, or good farming land gets eaten up by housing developments. Do you REALLY whant that?
Urban sprawl is bad, period. Trust a person who lives in a country where urban sprawl occurs. What your saying happens to some degree, but many people simply live in the more affordable “sub cities” or even in completely different cities or towns and then travel long distances to another sub city or town or even another completely different city all together to go to work. This is why bicycle commuting Australia wide accounts for around 1% of travel or less.
Offcourse, using only one mode of transport, will always be a massive failure.
You cannot center a big city around only one mode of transport. One have to support all of them and balance them out against eachother.
Otherwise, you’ll one or more other modes of transport to the point where you get what I call “single sided vision problems”, such as Gridlock with cars.
Or a break down of traffic rules, which is the case of some asian cycle “only” cities. Driving a car there is SCARY!!
Instead of having one city core with a huge Urban Sprawl around it, make it many smaller city cores, arounc one bigger one, this will make companies more interested in moving business out there, and also make obvious centers for mass transport scross the city, in form of trains, subways and metro’s.
As I mentioned earlier, you have to distrubute both work and homing areas in a way that promotes shorter distances.
And while you see an urban sprawl to be bad, it’s only bad if they all have to go to the city center, I don’t want that. Make them work in the outlying areas.
That way they only add traffic in the local area of the urban sprawl, which in turn will reduce congestion in the inner city.
But it takes political power to make companies move out to the outlying areas. Especially office companies should be moved out from city core and into the outlying regions.