Advocacy & Safety - Article: Bicycle Superhighways in Copenhagen

article located at http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/08/copenhagen-bicycle-superhighways.php
Copenhagen is spending $47 million to build bike superhighways there. Every day, 500,000 people ride to school or work there, FWIW. It would be an interesting experiment to see how well these superhighways work, and to what extent they help with the commute out there.

Hmmmm... that link did not work...

But this link
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/08/copenhagen-bicycle-superhighways.php

Doesn't seem to be much better.

Might I suggest that anyone interested, search the terms "copenhagen-bicycle-superhighways" on the site: http://www.treehugger.com/

Link fixed. Turns out that the software gets confused if we enclose the URL within square brackets.

Now how would GM recover if people started riding clean efficient, health-inducing bicycles along quiet safe roads?

Now how would GM recover if people started riding clean efficient, health-inducing bicycles along quiet safe roads?

Now see this is where ugly rumors get started... like some of the stuff that is going around about universal health care...

The bottom line is that people can still own cars, and use those cars, even GM cars, to drive 'cross country... but they don't actually have to use a car for each and every darn trip. I mean really, do you need a car to transport a whole quart of milk... Do you really need a car to actually move a loaf of bread?

I mean com'on, if you're just going down the street to shoot a game of pool... do you actually have to climb in a 2000 pound vehicle and run that thing for the lousy 1/2 mile that it takes to get to the pool hall?

I think GM will do just fine... as long as they remember that not everyone needs a military transit type vehicle... ;)

That picture of a dark deserted bike path at night says mugger to me.

Now how would GM recover if people started riding clean efficient, health-inducing bicycles along quiet safe roads?

Here's a case where substitution and such would be expected to take place if changes are made gradually. Just like hardly anyone uses a manual typewriter anymore, the previous manual typewriter people ended up getting new and different jobs. If car demand goes down, there will be fewer auto workers. The ex-auto workers would be expected to get different jobs. If overall efficiency is increased (as with the replacement to the manual typewriter), the phase-out of the less efficient stuff is still a good thing.

Do it too abruptly though (say by banning cars altogether), and it creates problems since transitions need time, and our society and economy is poorly designed to handle abrupt spikes.

That picture of a dark deserted bike path at night says mugger to me.

Right... so it needs to be less deserted.

Danmark is so cool. In the USA, GM (and their ilk) would spend twice that to see that such infrastructure never gets built, much like they interfered with light rail back in the day.

Danmark is so cool. In the USA, GM (and their ilk) would spend twice that to see that such infrastructure never gets built, much like they interfered with light rail back in the day.

there's something rotten in Danmark...

GM could make hubs and derailleurs--Shimano needs some competition.

But wait, there is more...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8224141.stm

Denmark has heavy taxes on gas and on the cars themselves. That has a lot to do with why people choose to be carfree, or drive less if they do have cars.

One question for this forum is: Do the Danes ride more because they have great infrastructure? Or do they have great infrastructure because they ride more, for different reasons?

Denmark has heavy taxes on gas and on the cars themselves. That has a lot to do with why people choose to be carfree, or drive less if they do have cars.

One question for this forum is: Do the Danes ride more because they have great infrastructure? Or do they have great infrastructure because they ride more, for different reasons?

That's a chicken-and-egg question :) It's a self-reinforcing system.

Denmark has heavy taxes on gas and on the cars themselves. That has a lot to do with why people choose to be carfree, or drive less if they do have cars.

One question for this forum is: Do the Danes ride more because they have great infrastructure? Or do they have great infrastructure because they ride more, for different reasons?

The information from the BBC article gives the impression this all came about from 20 years of diehard political lobbying.

Denmark has heavy taxes on gas and on the cars themselves. That has a lot to do with why people choose to be carfree, or drive less if they do have cars.

One question for this forum is: Do the Danes ride more because they have great infrastructure? Or do they have great infrastructure because they ride more, for different reasons?

Copenhagen has only had its cycling infrastructure for a little over 30 years; before then it was a very car-centric city, with few bikers, and many people wondered whether many Danes would actually give up driving cars and ride bikes.

So the infrastructure came first. Although certainly having so many people on bikes has led to the creation of additional infrastructure.